


A Song for the Road

by XmagicalX (Xparrot)



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Family, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-07-01
Updated: 1998-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:15:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/XmagicalX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little piece in which Nick gains some insight into his family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Song for the Road

"It's called the Touch of Time," Natalie announced.

Schanke eyed the hunk of milky white crystal doubtfully. "He was killing people for a piece of rock. Riiiiight. You know, we really have some loonies around here."

"Yeah," Nick Knight agreed, "I see one right now," with a pointed look at his partner.

"Ha. Ha. You're slaying me." Schanke sighed. "Seriously, we're talking sicko with a capital O. It's a rock. It's a Timex quartz."

"Little more than that, Schank," Knight murmured, hefting the stone in question. "Some people take beliefs very seriously."

"It is supposed to be able to put a person in contact with their ancestors," Natalie offered, in a tone that did not make it clear how serious she truly was.

On the other hand Schanke's sarcasm left little room for doubt. "What, like a dial-the-Underworld crystal ball?"

"Not quite," Nick corrected. "More like a time machine. For visions, at least."

"Great. So he wanted to be a time traveler." Schanke tsk-tsked. "Didn't he ever see Star Trek? Time travel's a bad idea, there's that whole episode that they go back in time and Kirk falls in love—"

"Star Trek?" Nick eyed his partner speculatively.

"Yeah, Nick, big TV show—"

"Didn't take you for a Trekker."

Schanke started to blush, mumbled, "Yeah, well, I mean, the star was Canadian, right? Support our countrymen; I've caught a few shows. Like that one, what was that woman's name, Ketter? Keebler?"

"Like the elf cookies?"

"Keeler," Nat broke in. "Edith Keeler, in 'City on the Edge of Forever'." Both men turned to her. She shrugged. "I agree, it proved time travel's a bad idea."

"Fortunately," Nick said, in a tone suggesting he was humoring the easily-distracted mortals, "the Touch of Time's creators were familiar with Star Trek's eternal lessons— several centuries before they aired—and didn't fool much with actual travel. According to the myths, at worse the crystal can take you back for a brief jaunt with an ancestor, give you a few revelations into them, and bring you back safe and sound. And before you can shoot your grandfather," he added, noticing Schanke opening his mouth.

His partner closed it again. "Takes all the fun out of paradoxes," he grumbled, moving off to his own desk.

"Sorry, Schank," Nick called after him, not sounding apologetic.

Nat lowered her voice. "Nick, do you believe any of those legends you seem to know all about?"

The detective shrugged. "I don't know," he answered honestly enough.

"Nick, they're myths—"

"Nat, I'm a vampire," with an unreadable smile. "I don't know what's true about this stone. Maybe not any of it. But I've heard enough stories that I'm going to be taking it back with me today—"

"Nick, this is evidence. You can't just walk off with it."

"I'll bring it back. The trial isn't for two days; until then, I think we'll all be safer if it's out of reach—and everyone is out of reach of it."

Natalie knew better than to argue with that determination. Instead she said, "You'll be in reach."

He changed the crystal to his other hand and stuck it into the depths of his coat pocket. "Don't worry," he assured her. "I'm older than it is; anywhere it takes me I've probably been before."

And any visions or journeys or anything else it could do to him most likely wouldn't be any worse than what he had already undergone in his long existence. "Be careful," Nat said quietly, not sure if she believed in anything supernatural about that sliver of rock—but once upon a time she hadn't believed in vampires, either. Caution couldn't hurt. Not that he would listen to her anyway. She watched his retreating back in silence, wondering.

By dawn Nick was in his loft, blinds shut against the burning sun, chin on his folded arms as he stared at the crystal on his coffee table. Each of its many planes was smooth, cool to the touch. When he peered past the white translucence he could make out the flaws inside, a spiderweb of fine cracks radiating from the center, as gnarled and complex as a cross-country roadmap.

The crystal would be worth next to nothing if not for the spiritual significance placed on it. The cutting was crude, the polish basic, and the flaws would take any remaining value from the white quartz. But it had been worth enough for one man to kill. Worth enough that two men and a women had been willing to die for it. A high-priced rock indeed.

Translucent enough to see the vase on its opposite side but not so clear that he could understand what secrets were in its depth, winding through the twisted fractures. Maybe nothing. Maybe more.

Leaving the crystal on the table he climbed the steps to his bed, threw the sheets over himself and dropped into sleep.

 

* * *

He was on a path, headed for the city with its stone towers growing on the distant horizon. There was a villa, a fashionable home, long and low, with a flowering courtyard and pebbled paths lined with shrubbery.

In front of the villa stood a man. A boy, really, Nicholas saw as he approached, only twenty years old, standing facing the setting sun, eyes slit against the amber rays.

"Greetings," called Nicholas.

The man-boy turned, nodded. "And to you, sir. You journey to the city?"

"Yes. I hope to reach it before dark."

Another slow nod. "Then you should hurry."

He knew he should, and yet he felt compelled to linger. "This is your home?" Gazing out on the rolling fields.

"I live with my family now." The boy shrugged, neither eager nor disinclined to talk. "Soon I'll leave, when the next army passes."

"So are you waiting for them?"

The boy, who had returned to contemplating the sun, looked back at him, eyebrow cocked in feigned interest. His eyes were arresting, a blue paler than a hazy sky. "The army won't march for months yet, as any citizen should know." But Nicholas's ignorance raised no suspicion in those light orbs.

Staring into them, he asked without thinking, "Where have we met?"

The boy met his gaze, no hesitation. "Never, to my knowledge." Yet his eyes traveled over Nicholas as if noting every detail. "No, I would remember you. Like a dark summer, you are. White gold, but your look still is black." He paused. "I would like to paint you, even if I never could capture your being."

"You're an artist? A painter?" Nicholas asked with interest.

The boy-man laughed, a natural, relaxed sound. "Not a painter, not, I simply enjoy fooling with pigments. An artist, perhaps...they tell me I am, but it could be only flattery."

"What is your art, then, if not with a brush?"

"I play." With some delay, "I try to make my own music, though what I hear in my mind I never seem to be able to reproduce, not with my fingers or my breath..."

There was a single note of sorrow in his voice, an angry grief that struck Nicholas to the core. "You try, then?" he couldn't help but ask.

"Yes." The laughter was a shadow of his amusement before. "I try, and I fail."

"The attempt is worthy." Not knowing this boy's skill, but believing his earnesty.

"Not worthy enough. When..." He stopped, but continued without Nicholas's encouragement, "When I was a child, a boy, I could sing. I still can now, I suppose, but it never sounds close to what it did. When my voice changed, I lost..." He refused to go on, fell silent.

Nicholas meditated in the quiet for a moment, then looked again at the boy. Once more he gazed at the sun, his skin warm and bronzed by its fire. As Nicholas opened his mouth he began speaking again. "That's why I come out here," almost to himself. "I—when I watch the sun, sometimes I still can hear it. I can't play it—but at least I can listen, like the light itself can sing..."

"I would be honored to hear you play," Nicholas told him. He would be; this boy was an artist, in the words he used, the way he felt, in the raw stirring of emotion behind the schooled features and light eyes. If he played half as well as he spoke he would be a treat to listen to.

The man took a breath. "I don't—" and then he shook his head. "For you," he said, "just a tune for a traveler, for luck on your journey. It will be night by the time you reach the city."

"I know," Nicholas replied, and the boy smiled, not entirely immune to flattery. He headed to his house, returned a moment later bearing a stringed instrument, smaller than a lute and differently shaped. Nicholas was unfamiliar with it but this boy was not. He took a seat on a nearby stone bench and strummed once across the strings. Adjusted them and touched again, this time closing his eyes and playing by feel.

Behind him Nicholas saw a women emerge from the villa and quietly approach. Older, gray hair elaborately arranged in a golden clip. The mother, he guessed; standing behind her son, not disturbing him, only listening.

Not that he could be disturbed, so deeply was he already engrossed in his instrument. A third time his fingers stretched the strings, but this time not a harmonious test but an actual chord. His song had begun.

At first Nicholas was captivated by his hands even more than his notes, the long fingers artfully plucking, cajoling the taut strings to sing. Then, gradually, the actual music began to enter his ears, filling his mind.

If this was his lesser version, what must his truly private music sound like? It began soft and light, delicate and tentative steps. Then the melody started to weave its tapestry, unrolling, echoing itself but never snarling in repetition. As it grew it became heavier, darker, but still a note of brightness occasionally broke free, a sunbeam cutting through a thunderhead. A rainstorm, Nicholas realized, a singular interpretation of a storm, even a discordant strike of thunder. And gradually becoming lighter, fading, the final notes rippling and at last vanishing into the air.

He would have applauded, would it not have broken the silence too harshly. Instead he bowed, slowly and deeply, to the man. Not a boy; no child could have performed so. "I thank you," as sincerely as he ever had meant it.

When he straightened the man's eyes were on him, brow slightly wrinkled as if pondering a puzzle. "No, I should thank you," he said slowly. "I haven't played so well in longer than a year..." He frowned, then forced his gaze away, standing. "But you must be getting on your way, if you want to ever reach your destination."

"Yes..." Though he wished for some excuse to linger.

"Goodbye, sir," and Nicholas almost felt dismissed. "I will see you again, I hope." The man sounded as if he meant it. More to himself, "I will find you; you are the sun, like the sun—my music is in you..." He smiled, as honest and open as his first laugh, and with a salute disappeared back into the villa, pausing besides the woman to say, "Did you hear, Mother?"

"I heard," she answered, and satisfied, he continued away.

The mother approached him with a deferential bow. "Sir, I don't know who you are or from where you come, but you have all my gratitude, always. My son has not played, not like that, for far too long... Lucius has so many talents, he can do so much more than anyone, but I think it is the music that makes him happiest—if you could ever come back, ever see him again—"

"I will," Nicholas assured her gravely, "I will see him again." I have no choice.

"Thank you," she said again, and taking his hand kissed it. He was surprised to see in her eyes tears for her son. Smiling softly, he wiped them away, kissed her cheek, and started once again down the road, toward the city he could forever see but never reach.

 

* * *

"So, Nick, have any 'visions' last night?" Schanke inquired. At Nick's startled look, "It's not polite to stare, you know? I saw you take the rock last night. I figured I didn't need to say anything if you brought it back (I knew you would) and voila, there it is."

Nick shrugged, removed the crystal and set it down on his desk. "Sorry, no time travel."

"Glad to hear it." Schanke seated himself on the corner of the desk, shaking his head. "I dunno, I dreamed awfully weird last night, and I was thinking, when I woke up..." He spoke with unusual gravity. "I wouldn't want to see them, my ancestors, I mean. Not my father, or my grandfather, I wouldn't want to see them, when they were young, happy... Not when I know what happened to them, how they are later." He grinned self-consciously. "You know? I'm just raving here, but really, I don't think I'd like it, I mean, would you?"

"I might," Nick replied, thinking of a boy and music from the sun. "I might."


End file.
